APEC Leaders to Enjoy Healthy Environment at Nurimaru
Leaders of major nations taking part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference will be able to work and dine together in a healthy environment during the upcoming APEC summit with the help of the latest architecture technology, according to organizers.
The Nurimaru APEC House is likely to become the symbol of this year's APEC summit.
The three-story building, located on the tip of Dongbaek Island, is the main venue for the second day of the summit.
The building combines the elements of a traditional Korean pavilion with modern design.
Nurimaru is a Korean neologism combining the words "Nuri"meaning "World"and "Maru"meaning "Peak"
It will be the place where the leaders of APEC meet to discuss free trade and other issues.
The 3,000 square meter building had been under construction for one year and was finished at the end of September.
The main venues of the building are a conference hall of 400 square meters on the third floor and a banquet hall of 350 square meters on the second floor.
Both offer a magnificent view over the East Sea. The ceiling of Nurimaru is modeled after Seokguram, the famous Korean cave temple, and richly decorated with traditional Korean patterns and ornaments.
Nurimaru was built to satisfy the highest security standards. Not only can it withstand an earthquake of magnitude 8, it is also secure enough to resist typhoons and tidal waves of up to 10 meters.
Threats from terrorism were also taken into account during the construction of Nurimaru.
All windows are bulletproof and the walls are reinforced with steel plates.
During the summit, a no fly/no-sail zone will be set-up around Nurimaru and safeguarded by warships, fighter planes, and soldiers on the ground.
To commemorate the APEC conference in Busan, the Bank of Korea decided to issue a silver coin with Nurimaru APEC House on one side.
Nurimaru APEC House has passed all of the tests for indoor air quality with flying colors, clearing it of "sick house syndrome."The syndrome refers to a physical disorder caused by air contamination inside new buildings, where cheap and toxic building materials discharge harmful chemicals.
The tests conducted by the Busan Institute of Health & Environment showed that the Nurimaru building met all the recommended guidelines to be enforced by the government next year, the organizers said.
One of its conference rooms has a formaldehyde level of 16 micrograms per cubic meter, well below the government guideline of 210 micrograms.
In the tests, all the venue rooms were also found to have much lower levels of other toxic chemicals, such as benzene, toluene and styrene, than the minimal levels considered as harmful to human health, according to the organizers.
The secret to the environment-friendly pavilion lies in state-of-the-art construction technologies, they said, noting their top priority was the health of the APEC leaders.
"We made an all-out effort to enable the leaders to work and dine in a clean and healthy environment. Other than the "bake-out"method, we used several other cutting-edge techniques we cannot disclose,"a construction official said.
Under the "bake-out"method, the temperature within the newly-built building would be raised on a number of occasions to 25 or 30 degrees Celsius to evaporate any toxic chemical residues remaining in wallpaper and other building materials. nw

Nurimaru APEC House, the venue of the second APEC Economic Leaders'sMeeting